


Trapped Up

by jenni3penny



Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 05:50:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18277073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenni3penny/pseuds/jenni3penny
Summary: Credit due to coolbyrne for this one, both the suggested plot and the beta. Any mistakes or typos are solely mine, though. Gibbs & Jack get stuck in an elevator for a few minutes.





	Trapped Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coolbyrne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolbyrne/gifts).



The world halted hard beneath them and two theoretical impossibilities struck her at once, really…

First... she physically could _not_ get stuck in a broken elevator.

Second… she _really_ couldn't get stuck in one with Jethro Gibbs.

There was a distinct possibility that she'd do something drastic if left alone with him in such an accidentally intimate space. That was… well, _if_ she could find her way out of the panic attack he was likely about to witness.

Jack groaned as he leaned in behind her, already messing with the emergency panel to get it open. Her skin had started to tingle up and tighten, telling her that she had better be ready to sweat the anxious out. “I can't be stuck in here for hours, Gibbs.”

“I know. _Relax_.” He gripped his right palm on her shoulder and squeezed, voice lowering as he swayed a little closer. He jammed at the emergency button as he pressed up sturdy behind her, messed with the switches, made her more nervous by the moment. “Chance of an elevator getting stuck for more than an hour is astronomical, Jack. Give it a couple minutes.”

She laughed nervously, the sound coming out sardonically and huffed. He leaned closer in response, pulled her slightly into his side as she turned her face toward his and nodded.

Jack blew her breath through pursed lips, did her best to level her lungs. Her rib cage felt constricted, each bone caging her lungs up and cinching. Her heart notched up another round as she felt his hand grace down her arm and catch on her fingers.

_That_ , though? She wasn't sure if that was an unconscious response to the broken elevator or the fact that he was holding her hand while his other fist slammed once into the control panel. She cradled around his arm and reflexively tugged him back with surprised annoyance.

_Seriously_? She honestly would have laughed at his response had it been _any_ other technology in _any_ other situation. Usually she would have found it silly but charming coming from Gibbs. She was just too plain anxious to find any humor in it, though. Not when even air was collapsing in on her.

“One in five thousand, actually. In the United States alone. That's nowhere near astronomical,” Jack countered while still pulling him away from the open emergency panel, levering him closer to her by way of grasped hands and an edged up tone.

She gave another swift tug at his attention and it had him swinging around and up against her. Both his hands tangled up with hers as he looked her over, his eyes still bright in the shadowed darkness of the elevator car. The emergency lighting made the blue reflect and glitter and for one brief moment that spark of his surprise settled her nerves.

“Try to comfort you and y’sass me?” he asked, semi amused but mostly concerned. He looked handsome when he was worried and especially in such shaded lighting. He was all angles and lines and a sharpness that she could clutch onto.

She twisted their hands together, using them as ballast, tipping into the broad and tall center of him. She angled her head forward, her forehead touching against his chest before anything else. Her whole body followed forward, flush up against the sturdiness of his chest.

She didn't care what he thought about it, either.

Not when the ability to breathe was becoming questionable.

Not when the small walls surrounding them were growing closer, tighter, pressuring.

Not when darkness became a creature from the dreams she thought she’d stopped having.

He went a little stiff at first, body taut as he seemed to internally debate his next move. Jack just let off a breathy laugh, driving her head forward in search of stability in the dark. If she could find it anywhere in the building she figured it was with him. She wasn't afraid to search it out, either. Not when she was quite so desperate for some balance and strength. Not when she was sweating like she's just finished a marathon workout.

“Well, you're not very good at comforting in real-time, Gibbs,” she laughed sardonically as he freed his right hand and caught her closer by her shoulder. “You're definitely an after-the-fact sorta man.”

She instantly reconsidered her commentary as his hand stroked down the back of her head, fingers catching into her hair and bracing at the back of her neck. “Breathe for me, huh Jack?”

She fiddled his shirt up in her fingers and inhaled deeply, drawing in the scent of him and letting it cloud in her lungs. All her attention was purposely on him, on the warmth beneath his shirt and the way his fingers were softly putting up and down pressure onto the back of her neck. She needed distraction or the entire elevator was just going to collapse in on them, regardless of how happily she enjoyed his other arm slinging around her. “Breathe for yourself, Cowboy. I've got my own work to do.”

“You're gettin’ feisty,” he hummed back gently, laying his jaw to the side of her head, stilling them both.

God, she wished she could enjoy his proximity and gentleness more… She was just having a hard time getting her brain in line with the rest of her. Because the rest of her was ready to throw him up against a wall. Her brain was obstinate in the face of fantasy, though. Reality was too true a concept. She was riding too tightly on the edge of Breakdown to let her attraction loose.

“You get the difference between five thousand and astronomical, right? I mean, you _were_ intentionally being hyperbolic?”

“ _Jack_.” His hand disentangled from her long enough to slip into his jacket pocket and and pull out his phone. Not that it was likely to help, but she'd give him credit for trying everything.

“Sorry,” she muttered, intentionally dulling the previous bite to her tone. “It's not claustrophobia.”

“Looks like a pretty nasty panic attack.”

_Well... and he ain't kiddin’._

“Cleithrophobia is far more likely. In my case, I mean,” she supplied while trying to breathe and fight the way he lifted her face at once. She knew she couldn't/shouldn't look up, that she'd go weaker from those blue eyes. She couldn't see the bright red of ‘EMERGENCY’ hanging over them in the shadows, not now. She couldn't meet his eyes with this particular hysteria in her own. “Fear of being trapped.”

He winced a sort of sympathy over her and she had to look away, had to lay her head against him to avoid how stalwart and calm he was. She felt… somehow inadequate opposite his stoicism.

“Hon, I can get you out of here if I have to,” he told her anyhow, half distracted as he tried call someone for help. All she needed to hear was the sound of his phone snapping closed beside her head and her assumptions were corroborated. There wasn't much chance they'd get a call out.

Wait. _Hon_?

Aw, _crap_ , that was so cute. Why’d he have to be cute? “What did you just say?”

“Said I could get you out. We can go up,” he explained quietly, voice just a murmur and likely quieted to keep her even.

“No, I mean - ”

“You really think I would ever let anything like that happen to you again?” It nearly sounded like an accusation, like he was offended by the very implication that she didn't trust him to protect her.

_Oh_ … She had _never_ meant for him to take up her protection. Not that having Jethro Gibbs as a sort of guardian sounded like a bad idea… but it certainly did sound unfair to him. And especially when she didn't have much to offer in return. Especially when she knew she had a penchant for being quite the pain in the backside.

_Oh, what a beautiful man…_

“You can't protect me, Gibbs.”

His face was completely passive, not a single emotion belied - and that frustrated the hell out of her because she felt like a knotted up mess of emotions, all tightly wound and twisted around themselves. She was a mess but he was so deliciously indifferent, so aloof… so _calm_. “Why not?”

Jack thumped the side of her fist into his chest in supposed annoyance, shoving at him slightly and huffing when he tucked her even closer in answer. “Because I'm personally exhausting.”

“That's the truth,” he quipped, a prize winning grin gifted over to her in the shadows. Christ, it was wondrous. She still hadn't gotten used to how easily he could undo her with that style of smile.

Jack pouted a little in answer, settling forward into his chest again. “Did you have to agree so quickly?”

“Did you want me to argue?”

She just smiled, caught the near bemused way he was watching her face in shadow. “No, not really.”

He moved faster than she had expected, the hand at her side lifting and shifting so that he could get her hair out of her face. She was positive she'd sweat enough to have it plastered to her cheeks and forehead. His palm lifted and laid flat against her forehead and she forgot the elevator just long enough to feel the heat of his touch. One brief moment of grace before the anxiety seized her up again.

It was… It was so very unexpected, the way he touched her. Because there was a difference between plain platonic comfort and physical intimacy and, sure, she could have read the signs wrong but… She was pretty sure she could read him most times now, poker face aside.

One warm hand brushed at her cheek again, distracting her from the way the darkness around them had seemed to gain solidity. “Not gonna let anyone hurt you again, Jack. Least not the way he did.”

Or maybe she really couldn't read him - because she honestly hadn't seen that one coming. She hadn't been prepared for the sentiment nor the driven sincerity with which he said it.

She shook her head just a fraction, “You can't promise me that.”

“Think I just did.” Ah, the gallant stoic… Ever the obstinate and always so very to-the-point. She (mostly) adored him for that, that lack of guile. “So what’s it again?”

“Huh?”

“If it's not claustrophobia?” he asked, lifting his jaw in an unspoken prodding. He was trying to distract her. _Saint of a man…_

“Cleithrophobia. The fear of being trapped.”

Gibbs nodded slowly, angling his jaw closer to hers in such a small movement that she was very suddenly confused by how they had managed to get so close. “Explains my divorces.”

Her nose wrinkled a little into the smile and she nodded as she breathed out a laugh. “Funny.”

“Do you want me to kiss you, Jack?”

Wait… _holy what_?

The man was highly intelligent - but also a bit of a moron, apparently. There was no way he could have misread half the physical cues she'd given him in the last five minutes, let alone the last few months.

But then, she was a match in idiocy it seemed. At least she was while still trying to breathe her way past anxiety. Which was obvious to both of them when all she could muster in reply was “What?”

He simply shrugged one shoulder and turned his head away. “Thought maybe it was mutual. Guess I read that one wrong.”

“No, you didn't,” Jack confirmed quickly, tugging at him to draw his attention back. There was a smile in his eyes when he looked at her and she could _just_ see it in the shadows. “You really didn't. I'm just…”

“It's gonna be okay.” Something in his voice had gone delicate, soft. The way he whispered was tracing the frayed edge of her, mapping her fear and anxiety. He was taking it more seriously than his earlier teasing or joking would have implied and that alone was a balm to her. “You've pulled the emergency stop on this thing yourself, Jack.”

“That was by choice. By intent,” she argued with purpose, pushing against his chest to illustrate the difference. “It would start again when _I_ wanted it to.”

He side smirked her, purposely being a shit, _no doubt_. His right hand rose so that his knuckles could brush her bottom lip in the darkness and she lost any chance of ever _ever_ hiding how much she wanted him. “You've never wanted to catch me in here, just us? Just stop things up a minute and - ”

She surprised herself by kissing him as soon as his hand had dropped away. But she kissed him hard and with both fists jerked up into the front of his shirt. His hands caught on to what was happening sooner than the rest of him because they yanked her hips in closer before he closed his arms around her.

That was all it took, honestly… For her to accept this new reality. Because he was the one to grip a hand into her hair and double down the strength of the kiss. _Damn him._

There was a plane of existence wherein he kissed her back with more possession and heat and promise than she'd given in starting and _Thank Christ_ that was the world she lived in… Thank Christ for broken elevators and the inexhaustible chivalry instilled by the United States Marine Corps. She wasn’t sure she could have gotten him quite so kissably pliable without the accidental aide of post traumatic stress and the fact that most Marines she knew couldn’t just stand by and watch a woman cry.

He groaned against her lips when she drew the kiss to an end - a slow end that actually just meant her nervous laughter and him nipping two smaller kisses off her despite the need to breathe. He didn’t give her up easily and, _God_ , she liked that.

“Jeez, Jack,” he laughed after her and she re-considered who had really been plying the other into the kissing. The heat of his hum rubbed along her forehead and she exhaled slowly into a smile. “Coulda just asked.”

“That was sneaky,” she accused with a playful half shove, even as she cuddled closer into his chest.

“Worked in my favor, though. Relax your breathing. Close your eyes.”

She let him curl her up, his hands lifting her arms so that she slung around his shoulders and tucked her head down. She could inhale the smell of him, eyes closed so that she could avoid their surroundings as he closed around her. She could breathe - slowly, purposely. “I'm a hot goddamn mess, Gibbs.”

“I'll give ya two outta three.” His grin was bright in his voice and she could hear the sound of it brushing the side of her head before he kissed into her hair.

She gripped into his shirt collar and dug in closer, her mouth kissing just behind his ear and that alone got a squeeze out of him. “You can't always protect me, you know?”

“I can try,” he answered succinctly, no argument allowed. It was the exact tone he used with his team when he didn't want any back-talk and, honestly, it just made her laugh a little as he continued. “Where we goin’ from here?”

“On a broken elevator? That rhetorical?”

Gibbs near rolled his eyes at her, face all full of annoyance. “You know what I mean.”

The world jerked hard beneath them and the lights flicked brighter and she couldn’t help but laugh at the timing of it all. Laughter of relief more than anything, she figured. Relief and a sort of flirtatious elation as he held their combined balance. “Up, it seems.”

“ _Jack_ ,” he grumped, eyes narrowing at her as his features went serious and concerned. She watched his glance flick to the numbers that were rising as they went back up toward the floor where his team was probably waiting on him. There was frustration on his face as he repeated “You _know_ what I mean.”

_Oh_ , sweet man. He was more than she had ever bargained for… She’d _never_ expected to be so attracted to him, so attached to him, not in the the least. When she'd heard all those stories about him, sure, she had expected a challenge - but not one that offered such excellent rewards.

“I go where you go,” she murmured with a tiny but true nod and a genuine smile. “Okay?”

Relief passed over his face too and she smirked at that, at the reminder that Jethro Gibbs had his own list of phobias. And it seemed more than a possibility that losing her was one of them. “Okay.”

Seemed Gibbs wasn't afraid of entrapment, quite the contrary. At least in her case…

Didn't mean she couldn't still have a little fun with him.

“Did I tell you that thirty Americans are killed by elevators per year?”

“ _Jack_.”


End file.
